NCTE 2010 – An Invitation…

Last year at NCTE, we began a conversation, Three Reports from Cyberspace. We thank Jeff Golub and Jim Strickland for organizing the session, and Helen Wierenga for being our responder. And, we thank all of you, because what happened during the session was, quite simply, amazing.

Bud, Troy, and the entire audience were engaged in a continual conversation that moved from notes appearing on the screen, to questions from the audience, back to one of one of them answering on stage, and out to the wider world through Twitter and Etherpad. Sara’s thinking was with us in the room, even though she wasn’t physically present. Over the course of the hour, we shared a number of examples from our own teaching and research that helped illuminate issues related to filtering, curriculum, assessment, and teaching in digital spaces. We were, in short, completely engaged in the conversation, in “multitasking” at its best. And that brings us to where we are now, preparing to offer more reports from cyberspace.

So, why write about that here, three weeks from the next session/conversation?

We do so as an invitation.

A conference session is a waypoint, a time and place to check in on where we’ve been, but more important, where we’re going. So before we get to that waypoint, let’s take a moment to share our own reports from cyberspace as a way of starting this conversation. Here is a link to an open Google Doc where we’ve left space for you to jot some thoughts as we move into our time together. If you can join us for the session at NCTE, great. But if not, and you’d still like to report or check in, feel free to do so.

Here are some prompts that will take us into our session. Help yourself to whichever one(s) will be the most useful in your thinking and reporting:

What’s the state of your educational cyberspace at this moment in November 2010? What’s good? What’s scary? What’s working? What’s not?

What needs doing? Fixing? Raising up?

Where are you focusing your attention?

Where are we going with all of this Internet stuff? What’s new? What’s good?

Finally, what do you hope to leave our session with? What’s next? So what?

If the reporting ends at the session, then we’ve failed. Conferences are notorious spaces, in that we all get together and get excited, but then the momentum seems to die. Help us figure out where to go and what to do next. In a time of increased standards and assessments, when everyone is an expert on matters of teaching and learning, and reading and writing, we need to tell our stories. It’s never been more important to be thoughtful out loud.

Bud Hunt, Troy Hicks, and Sara Kajder

PS – If you can’t make the session, but will be at NCTE, you’ll have another chance to join us immediately after this session at the Middle Level Get Together. We’d love to see you, and hear your report(s), wherever you’ll choose to join us.